3296 Hôtel Dupanloup, 2014

Public Commission of the University of Orléans, France with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Communication.

The history of the Université d’Orléans and its hometown becomes animated in a new interior by Studio Makkink & Bey, which is furnished with specially designed Dupanloup chairs and tables, catalogue pieces and customized furniture. The new interior design, Dexter and Sinister, officially opens in September 2014.

L'Hôtel Dupanloup, a newly opened research centre of the University of Orléans, was transformed by using the historic timeline of former functions of the 17th-century building and extracts of the city's rich past that have fed the development of knowledge and the prosperity of the French town. When it was a bishop's house the building was abundantly filled with objects, patterns and images. All this was erased to make it a library filled with books and full of stories. New designs show these function shifts in photo impressions on the tables and chairs show the renovation of the building, while curtains and carpets reference the life and work of a few of Orléans' most celebrated minds throughout the times in rich illustrations. The curtains are based on the iconography from archives of leading cultural institutions such as the Musée des beaux-arts d'Orléans, the FRAC Centre, and the Maison de Jeanne-d'Arc. The Orléans specials are combined with earlier studio designs like the PROOFF range and Tree Trunk Bench, antiques and a few white Ikea pieces that were treated by students of the the design school of Orleans, l'ESAD. Each furniture setting is always the equation of a period object + a bespoke object + a students' transformation of a white object + an existing object by Studio Makkink & Bey or an object that was either French or Dutch made.